Healing surges with a nod towards simulation

[Crazy Jerome]

House Rules Forum?

Wouldn't work as a house rule. Part of the point is that this is an aspect of the system that is difficult to house rule now. The changes to the flow of hit point loss and recovery during combat are subtle, but too pervasive for house rules. This is a rough design idea for a new/revised edtion. It merely happens to be a design idea that is difficult to communicate without some discussion of the mechanics.

Even in my example, I've probably made the change less subtle than it would be once playtesting was done. The change to hit points, surges, and surge values would be slight, because the current pacing is mostly good. Get too far from that, and you lose one of the better aspects of 4E combat. It's a bit more drastic on the numbers on the monster side, but the goal is a similar pacing that uses surges.

Edit: My example is also probably not subtle enough on the intended effects of having damage acrue to surges directly, thus the confusion with a wound/vitality system. In the vast majority of times, with intended pacing, a character should not have their hit points bypassed. Accordingly, monster effects that do so would be rare. On the character side, losing surges to crits and coup de grace is meant to make the players say, "ouch," but not radically change how they operate. It is more feel than reality. However, as presented, this does change once a character runs out of surges but still has a lot of hit points--especially if this is just before a boss fight with some nasty creature capable of taking surges more often.

For that reason, a character down to half their hit points and only 3 surges after the penultimate fight (or what they thought was that fight) might choose to only use 1 or 2 of those surges to recover. Experienced 4E players know that there really isn't much difference between "used all my surges and at full hit points" versus "down about a 1/4 of my hit points and one surges saved back". This is because surges are only really used for recovery most of the time, and when absent (trek through the desert in a skill challenge) will be taken off of hit points anyway. The proposed model does change that, and put an extra thing to consider into recovery choices.

 

[DracoSuave]

Labelling House Rules/Player Creation stuff as 'New Edition Ideas' doesn't make it not a House Rule nor Player Creation.

I'm not opposed to what you're trying to do, it's just this is not the exact forum for it, is all.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Design expressed through mechanics is not house rules. Pervasive changes are not a good fit for house rules. If you don't agree that this is so, or that this proposed model fits that criteria, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[DracoSuave]

It's player created rules, rather than official rules, and it's a discussion of a proposed player created rule variant.

Yes, it does belong in House Rules and Player Creations.

The scope of changes necessary doesn't magically make it not a player creation.

Disagree all you like, but it ain't a published $th Edition D&D thing, or a proposed change for the mythical future edition that people want to pretend currently exists. If it's player created, it belongs in the player-created forum, and if it's not 4th edition it doesn't belong in the 4th edition forum.

Either way, this is not the correct place for it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like where you're going with this. Lemme try to re-iterate the idea with some new terms:

A character being hit in combat doesn't usually take damage. Instead, they take...Fatigue. Fatigue can make you pass out if it crosses a certain thershold, but doesn't horribly affect your heroic character while its accumulating. Each hit gives you a certain amount of Fatigue as you block it, dodge it, mitigate it, or otherwise turn it aside, so that you aren't killed instantly by the blow. Fatigue starts at 0, and counts up as you are hit in combat until it exceeds your Threshold, at which point you fall unconscious.

Fatigue is fairly easy to restore. A warlord can scream at you and give you a boost of energy. A clerics prayers make you more optimistic. A bard's music helps you ignore your minor injuries.

A crit...and certain other nasty attacks...might actually damage your Life Force. Your LF are the thing tying you to reality and life, and you don't have that much of it -- only a few Life Points at character creation. When you're knocked out from fatigue, you can't defend your LPs anymore, so you risk real death in that case.

LPs are harder to recover -- you can rest, but if you rest somewhere in the wilderness for a night, you'll usually only recover 1. A healer, or certain magical effects, can help you recover more LPs, but you still generally won't get many back in a single night of rest.

In between encounters (when taking a short rest), you can spend some of your Life Points to recover your Fatigue, effectively shrugging off some of the bumps and bruises, but making you more vulnerable to very brutal attacks.

....

To my mind, this terminology change (and the added use of things that damage surges, with surges coming back more slowly) helps out in spades.

The main difference between this and the system as it exists now is (1) that there are more effects that can change your Life Force (e.g.: reduce or increase your surges), and (2) that there is no easy way to recover Life Force (an extended rest doesn't restore all of your surges).

I like it.

 

[the Jester]

Design expressed through mechanics is not house rules.

It is when it isn't a published part of the game.

We're not discussing the rules as they exist here; we're discussing changing or rewriting a (major) part of the rules.

I would also say that "completely revising the skill system," for example, would be house rules.

Anyway, just a note- reducing regained hit points for a surge in combat to 1/6 won't help with grind IMHO, since monsters (almost) never get to use surges. It will just make it harder for the pcs to survive the expected damage from monsters.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

To my mind, this terminology change (and the added use of things that damage surges, with surges coming back more slowly) helps out in spades.

The main difference between this and the system as it exists now is (1) that there are more effects that can change your Life Force (e.g.: reduce or increase your surges), and (2) that there is no easy way to recover Life Force (an extended rest doesn't restore all of your surges).

I like "life force" and "fatigue" as well as anything I can think of for the terms. Only thing I don't like about it is the removal of "hit points" altogether, as that bumps into one of my limits for traditional D&D. I suppose the two collectively could be grouped under the heading "hit points".

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Anyway, just a note- reducing regained hit points for a surge in combat to 1/6 won't help with grind IMHO, since monsters (almost) never get to use surges. It will just make it harder for the pcs to survive the expected damage from monsters.

Well, it is presumed that the math for damage would be reworked throughout the system so that the damage does not scale quite as fast. Though I do agree that 1/6 will probably be too extreme. My guess is that 1/5 would work better as a starting place.

However, the reduction for grind would be in the reduced hit points for monsters, their few "surges" (mainly to let them survive effects that do such damage), and the occasional splatting of a monster via knocking out its surges before the hit points are gone. Plenty of people already do the reduced hit point thing, but as explained below, I want an incentive to try to take them out fast at times.

I guess one of my problems with the 4E model is that damage of the basic attacks, at wills, and even some encounter powers really doesn't scale all that well compared to what a character can get back from a surge. There is too much incentive to heal compared to "kill the monster before it can hit too many times, then heal up after the fight." At least for my taste. The huge hit point total for the monsters and no way to bypass it compounds this. OTOH, I certainly don't want to go back to 2 round combats that take 1.5 hours, and consist of each side blasting with "save or die" effects. I would like to edge, ever so slightly, towards that, while mainly staying pretty close to where 4E is now.

It is certainly possible that the way I have it layed out goes too far towards the earlier model.

 

[Eridanis]

Moved to House Rules.

 

[Umbran]

And, folks, for the record - next time, if you think something belongs in House Rules, don't spend time arguing over it in-thread. Simply report the first post asking us politely to move it, and well take a look. It requires moderator to move a thread, so wrangling with the OP or others in the thread isn't helpful.

Thanks.